Sulfate betaines are a new type of betaines and show better performance than sulfonic betaine as surfactants.
Most of the surfactants produced by the chemical industry are based on petrochemicals. Many conventional surfactants containing 1,4-dioxane may be carcinogenic to humans. A number of efforts to use carbohydrates as bulk raw materials for synthesis of non-ionic surfactants have been reported. See Kosaka, T; Yamada T. in Sucrochemistry ACS Symposium Series, No. 41; John L. Hickson, Ed.; Am. Chem. Soc.: Washington, D.C., 1977, p 84; James, C. E.; Hough, L.; Khan, R. Prog. Chem. Org. Natl. Products 1989, 55, 117; and Kunz, M. in Carbohydrates as Organic Raw Materials. F. W. Lichtenthaler, Ed.; VCH: Weinheim, 1991, p 127. There has been a rapidly increasing demand for green surfactants, especially for sulfate betaines.
Till to now, several methods have been reported to synthesize sulfate betaines.
German patent application publication No. 1906851 discloses a method of synthesizing sulfate betaines. In the reaction, a tertiary amine was reacted with sulfur trioxide firstly and then reacted with ethylene oxide to obtain sulfate betaine as shown below:

Canada patent application publication No. 2060079 and patent No. 1312606, and Japan patent application publication Nos. 63243065 and 19870259848 describe reactions of preparing sulfate betaines by reacting an adduct of a base having a tertiary N atom and sulfur trioxide/sulphuric acid in the presence of an alkylene carbonate as a solvent as shown below:

U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,824,867 and 4,824,867 disclose a reaction in which a tertiary amine was reacted with chlorine alcohol, and then reacted with SO3/ClSO3H to obtain the sulfate betaine as shown below:

Despite these attempts, there still remains a need to find novel and improved methods to synthesize compounds such as sulfate betaines for easy industrialization.